Fall of Brightburn
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Evil cannot thrive within a superhero. A superhero cannot embrace evil. To embrace evil is to give up hope. But to receive hope is to be expelled of evil. Read if you want hope. Read if you want redemption. Read if you want retribution...and one to give it.


Creation began on 05-19-19

Creation ended on 05-20-19

Brightburn

Fall of Brightburn

A/N: I'm disgusted with outcome of the film, even though it hasn't hit the theaters yet. There is no such thing as a superhero for evil, only a super villain, but like all villains, they face a hero, and here is mine.

Super-strength, super-speed, super-senses, invulnerability, flight and heat vision, these were only a handful of abilities that made a person different from others. But…when the person in question is not like everyone else around them, and their behavior becomes unsettling, you're no longer dealing with an individual of the usual problems. No, you're dealing with an individual that will become a threat if they're not handled with utmost discretion. And a threat they would be…to everyone and everything everywhere unless they were stopped.

"There is no hope for one like this," a lone figure uttered as he sat on his wooden throne in a vast field of flowers, looking through a glass sphere floating in front of them, showing a young boy with a mask over his head and a blanket of some sort being used as a cape. "He could've grown up to be a man the world could declare a hero to the people, a great man with great power and responsibility, friends and family. Instead, he chose to embrace his inner darkness and spread it across the world."

The man got up changed his appearance, becoming a man of special significance that his chances of resolving this issue were absolute. He possessed gold and silver armor on his arms, legs and torso, a pair of fang-like markings under his eyes, a sword in left hand and wore a small cape with a bright yellow color. If anyone saw this person, they'd use words such as "faith", "salvation", "mercy" and "honor", seeing him as a gift from the heavens themselves.

"If he wants to do his brand of twisted actions against a world that has done him no wrong," he uttered, "then he has to face a man that believes in the power of belief, of mercy and hope. He is a mistake that needs to be corrected…and I will correct him."

-x-

Brandon Breyer, or Brightburn as he started to see himself as, released his adopted mother, Tori, from his hold…and watched her fall to her death.

"BRIGHTBURN!" He heard someone yell to him, and turned around in the air, seeing another man in armor with a cape, and he was holding his mother, who seemed relieved to still be alive. "Enough!"

"Who are you?" Brightburn demanded.

"I'm the guy that deals with guys like you," the man explained. "I am simply a man that serves the collective will of many countless souls to ensure stability. You…are not a part of this collective, so you have to be set straight. You just tried to murder your own mother, and she believes that there's good in you, despite the horrible things you've done to contradict her belief and love in you. I have seen your future, and it's a terrible fate you will unleash upon countless people…until there is no one left."

Suddenly, Brandon saw a plane flying towards them, and he flew towards it with the intent to destroy it with his abilities.

"Brandon, don't!" Tori yelled.

"He won't get to it, Mrs. Breyer," the mysterious man told her. "Believe that he won't…and he won't. Believe that the plane isn't there…and it won't be there."

As Brandon made contact with the plane, it suddenly disappeared, and in place of it was…a large gathering of clouds shaped like the plane.

He flew back to where his mother was with the man and demanded how he did that.

"I'm merely stronger than you currently are, but in a class by myself here," he explained cryptically. "You don't possess abilities based on the power of belief or redemption, just the power of strength, flight and limited invulnerability. If we were to fight, I would win, hands down."

"You don't know that," Brandon expressed to him, his eyes glowing red.

"Believe me when I say that I do."

Then, the man levitated Tori away from them and wrapped her in a glowing, green sphere with a degree of warmth inside it; this way, she was protected against the coldness around them.

"Unfortunately, however, I don't have your adoptive mother's permission to take your life," he told Brandon, "but I don't have to end you. I just have to ensure that you don't hurt anyone like you already have. You have to take the world, you say? For what reason do you have to do that, Brightburn? Are you desperate to be seen and heard? Do you need for everyone to know who you are, even if it means you have to hurt others, which would do the opposite of making you well-known. You'd be infamous, feared and hated by all. Once you go down the path of hatred and destruction, there's no coming back from it. There's no forgiveness, no second chance, no mercy or pity…but I pity you, Brightburn. I pity you. You had everything a child from another world could possibly want in life…but it wasn't enough for you. But believe me, by the time I'm done with you…you will never know what you had in the darkest of thoughts ever again."

"Not if I kill you."

"Then by all means, try and kill me."

Brightburn flew at him with the intent to kill him, to rip him to pieces and set him ablaze. Nothing and no one was going to stop him from taking this world.

The man simply slid out the way, causing Brightburn to miss him, and then he grabbed Brightburn by his cape, pulling it with enough force to drag him backwards by his neck.

"The thing about invulnerability is that there's a limit to how much you can withstand," he told the boy. "Depending upon the type and degree of punishment you can endure, you're pretty much unbreakable…but there are other ways to circumvent this invulnerability by exploiting other potential weaknesses. I just pulled you by your lousy cape, which caused you to gasp for air by applying force to close your windpipe for two seconds, implying that you need oxygen; if you were drowned of suffocated, death would claim you as it would any other person. Let's see how tough you really are."

Unsheathing his sword, the man's blade glistened in the moonlight.

Brightburn yelled as he tried to hit him in the waist, but only managed to hit air.

Pierce! Brandon felt something sharp penetrate his back and out his front.

Blood spilled from his mouth as he looked down at the sword blade that stuck out in front of him.

"Limited invulnerability," the man uttered. "I guess this means you don't have a healing factor like certain superheroes do, meaning you have to heal from injuries at the pace of a regular human. Well, we all have her limitations. Haaurgh!"

The man pulled his sword out of the boy and grabbed him by his hair, kneeing him in his face with enough force to cause a nosebleed due to his nose being broken.

Brightburn tried to use his heat vision against the man, but had no perception of where he floated in the air around him. His eyes were obscured by darkness that wasn't supposed to be there.

"Where are you?!" He yelled.

"I'm right here in front of you," he heard the man say, and then he raised his arms up to grab him. "I was actually behind you. I hit you in the head with enough force that your brain was forced to disable your vision to speed cerebral recovery. Right now, you're experiencing temporary blindness. Rely on one sense too much, the others become useless until put to work."

The man then re-sheathed his sword and brought his arms together, slamming them against Brightburn's back, hearing a cracking of bone within his spine.

"Rrrraaurgh!" The boy yelled in pain, losing sensation in his feet.

SLAM! SLAM! He felt his shoulders get broken by a tremendous force.

"And now your arms are broken and dislocated," the man told him.

"Who…what are you?" Brandon asked him, unable to do anything but float there in the air right now.

"I am…as I've always been since a long, long time ago," he spoke cryptically, feeling his cape getting removed from his body. "I've gone by many names over many lifetimes. Some think of me as a monster while others see me as an angel. Jesus, Lucifer, a saint, a demon, a legion in one body, a miracle among thousands, sometimes even a martyr for those that need salvation. I am the brother of all and brother of one, a guardian of innocent souls, bound to correct the mistakes made by many in order to save their souls from the darkness that threatens to condemn them and countless others. And, as your brother, this is just tough love."

BASH! Brandon felt a force similar to the ones from earlier struck his head, sending him falling.

"It's only tough love…because sometimes, a mother's love isn't enough to change your ways," he heard the man say to him before he lost consciousness…and fell deep into the darkness.

-x-

Tori watched as her son fell to the Earth. She felt sadness as he had to be harmed by this man that saved her life and promised to save his.

"He's not dead yet," the man told her, removing the sphere from around her so that he could take her down. "You believe there is still good in him, do you not?"

"I want to believe," she responded. "I want to believe that there is good in him, that he can be saved, despite everything he's done. But tell me…please… There's nothing but evil in him…isn't there?"

He closed his eyes and then reopened them to face her.

"Yes," he answered her, "there is evil in him…but it was the result of background from before you found him…and his environment after you found him. But like all things, they can be changed. To save your son and undo his dark fate, the darkness within him has to be removed and replaced with compassion, with trust and humility for him to understand humanity. To get him to defy what has become his nature, it is his very nature itself that must be changed. Believe he can be like regular people, that he can become a good person, to walk the path of the righteous and honorable…and we will make it so. It's never too late to save one's life."

He carried her down to where Brandon crashed, which was, incredibly, their family home. They found him on the floor in the basement, near the vessel he arrived in when he was a baby.

"Please," Tori begged, "save him."

The man unsheathed his sword again and raised it over his head.

"Believe is merciful salvation," he told Tori. "Tell your son that everything will be alright, that this will all be over when he wakes up. Believe…like I believe."

Looking down at her crippled child, Tori responded, "Everything's going to be alright now, Brandon."

She had to believe that he could be saved from himself…and the world could be saved from what he had become. She wanted her son back. She needed him to be back. Her heart yearned for his salvation that only this man could give him.

_Please, Brandon, go back to being the sweet-natured child I know you can be,_ her soul begged, as the man brought the sword down on him. _Please!_

-x-

The Breyer home, looking as though nothing had transpired within the past few days, was enjoying a peaceful breakfast with its occupants.

"Would you like some more eggs, Brandon?" Tori asked her son.

"Yes, please," Brandon answered, grateful to his mother.

"Anything new at school happened, Brandon?" Kyle asked his son.

"We just need to work on a new science project," he answered him. "It revolves around alternative energy research that has been going on for decades."

"Ah, that's good."

After breakfast, Brandon ran up to his room and grabbed his backpack, all over the walls of his room were posters of superheroes and monsters from successful films and comic books.

"I'll be back after school," he told his parents. "I love you!"

"We love you, too, Brandon!" Tori expressed as he ran off.

A second later, Tori turned her head and saw the man she owed a great debt of gratitude to, sitting in a chair nearby in the living room.

"How is he?" He asked her.

"He's doing good, thanks to you," she answered him. "Thank you for saving him…and undoing everything he did."

"It was your hope that changed the outcome, Mrs. Breyer," he informed her. "It was your need to see good in him that ended up saving him. You can rest assured now…that he's not going to turn into a monster like he did before. I've made certain of it."

Since her husband left out shortly after Brandon did, Tori could speak to the man without the fear of someone eavesdropping on them.

"How have you made certain of it?" She asked him.

He held up a glass jar in front of her, revealing a small figure inside it, struggling to break free. It looked like her son in his Brightburn persona, only restrained and unable to get loose.

"This being represents Brandon's dark side, Brightburn," he explained. "When I used my sword on him last night, I separated him from this darkness that had been growing inside him over time, and trapped it in a representation of how he would've turned out. Brightburn, your son's dark side, has fallen…and will never rise again. You…are a heroine in your son's eyes…and to the world."

Tori looked at Brightburn, who seemed helpless and weak against the glass jar that encased him. Then, she turned away from its sight, never wanting to see that side of her son that had been expelled from his soul ever again.

"What will you do with him?" She asked.

"As with all the other cruelties of existence," he responded, "I'll lock him up someplace beyond time, where he cannot escape and hurt anyone. Until we meet again, Mrs. Breyer. Good day to you."

And then, he was gone, in an instant, as though he was never there.

"Thank you…Brother Correction," she praised, forever grateful that he unmade everything her son did when he was Brightburn…and taking the evil out of him and replacing it with hope. "Thank you."

-x-

Setting the jar inside a cupboard along other containers that held other individuals from other times and places, Brother Correction looked down at Brightburn, who continued to struggle in desperation to escape.

"I won't tell you to give up," he told the dark being. "Try all you want. It won't make any difference. You're in my domain like all the rest. Here, I decide all…and here is where I choose who among you will deserve a semblance of freedom to see if you can change your ways. Brightburn, it is here, there, wherever I choose to go, wherever I'm needed to undo the darkness that spread across like a plague in the night…I'm the unseen hero that everyone knows. You…will never be part of any world, no matter how hard you try."

Closing the cupboard, he sealed the glowing, red eyes in the darkness among the other beings Brother Correction had taken to protect the innocent. And then he made it disappear, beyond the reach of any other being that might've sought it out.

"An evil superhero," he sighed as he returned to his wooden throne. "There is no such thing. There is only a hero, a superhero, a reluctant hero or an antihero among the types of heroes people see and read about. It is they…that become legends to the hearts of many that believe in them. The galactic Green Lantern Corps, the amazing Spider-Man, the vengeful Spawn, regular policemen and policewomen, Good Samaritans, doctors and nurses, the everyday people that make the miracles happen for everyone else to witness."

Atop his throne, he gazed through the glass spheres that floated in front of him, allowing him to observe the changes he made to the worlds he visited or which world needed to affect changes. One of them showed Brandon Breyer doing the remarkable deed of helping an elderly lady to cross the street.

"Stay on the path of righteousness, Brandon Breyer," he uttered. "Stay on the path of righteousness."

Fin

A/N: Now, anyone that doesn't like the film can enjoy this story if they can. While there is good and bad inside us all, there can never be such a thing as an evil superhero. You're either a hero or a villain, never both; a villain can't be good just as a hero can't be bad, just as not all heroes come from good beginnings as not all villains start out bad. Peace.


End file.
